BFI-backed Animation Featured lab selects seven projects including ‘The Bear And The Piano’

By Ben Dalton2026-10-05T10:30:00+01:00

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'The Bear And The Piano'

Source: Animation Featured

‘The Bear And The Piano’

EXCLUSIVE: Manchester Animation Festival has selected seven projects for its inaugural Animation Featured, a development lab aimed at strengthening the UK’s feature animation pipeline.

Projects selected for the BFI-backed lab include Chris Bowden’s The Bear And The Piano, adapted from David Lichfield’s children’s book of the same name. The story follows a curious young bear who finds an old piano which brings joy to the whole forest; until a 12-year-old girl and her father stumble across him on their woodland hike.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Also selected is Check Out, produced by former BBC Film development executive Dionne Farrell, and directed by Rory Waudby-Tolley. The dark comedy sees a big supermarket and all inside whisked off into limbo, where a group of teenagers must uncover a decades-old secret to bring their community home.

The lab, which received 98 applications, is backed by the BFI Creative Challenge Fund, and held its first residency last week. Each team will now begin a development process, with 115 hours of session, workshops, mentoring, and industry trips. Participants are paid for their time, enabling them to focus fully on developing their work.

Mentors include animation producers Ruth Fielding, joint managing director at Lupus Films; Richard Beek; and Claire Jennings.

“The response to the inaugural Animation Featured programme has been remarkable,” said programme director Jen Hall. “The standard of work submitted was exceptionally high, and selecting just seven projects was an extremely challenging process. What has come through clearly is how necessary a scheme like this is - we’ve heard it repeatedly from applicants, partners and industry colleagues alike.”